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Amazon’s New Fleet of Tablets: Kindle Fire HDX

Amazon has released a new fleet of high-end tablets, lower-pricing on less-advanced devices and a bevy of new features in its new Android-based operating system.

Dubbed Kindle Fire HDX, Amazon’s new flagship devices come in two sizes — seven inches and 8.9 inches — and feature a quad-core 2.2 GHz processor,11 hours of battery life, and dual stereo speakers with Dolby Digital Plus audio. The tablets also have HDX displays, what the company is calling “beyond HD.”

The new devices will be powered by the latest operating systems for the Fire, Mojito. It’s built on Google’s Android and includes new features such as “quiet time,” which seems to mimic Kobo’s new “reading mode” by turning off notifications and other distractions. The company also added the “mayday button,” which, when pressed, accesses free, around-the-clock tech support.

“With the Mayday button, our goal is to revolutionize tech support,” Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos said in a statement.

The company also released a less expensive version of its seven-inch tablet, the Kindle Fire HD, which will retail for $139.

The seven inch HDX will retail for $229 and it will begin shipping to consumers on October 18. The 4G version is $329 and it will begin shipping on November 14. The 8.9 inch HDX is $379 and it will begin shipping on November 7. The 4G version is $479 and it will begin shipping on December 10. All are currently available for pre-order.